Batman and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Will Meet in New Animated Movie

Yes. According to SyFy Wire, the Dark Knight and the Heroes in a Half Shell are teaming up for an unusual animated movie. The film will debut on 4K, Blu-ray, and Digital later this spring. The cast includes Troy Baker as both Batman and the Joker, Darren Criss as Raphael, Kyle Moon as Michelangelo, Baron Vaughn as Donatello, with Rachel Bloom from Crazy Ex-Girlfriend as Batgirl, and none other than SpongeBob SquarePants himself, Tom Kenny, as the Penguin.

Per SyFy, the movie is based on a recent mini-series called Batman/Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtlesby James Tynion IV and Freddie Williams II. Here is that book’s synopsis, from Amazon:

NEW YORK CITY. The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles face the battle of a lifetime, fighting both the fearsome Foot Clan and their leader, the Shredder, and the alien forces of General Krang…which is exactly Krang’s plan. Now a single dimensional warp can rid him of both of his greatest rivals at once.

GOTHAM CITY. From the Penguin to Killer Croc to Ra’s al Ghul and beyond, the caped crime-fighter called Batman already has his hands full protecting his city. Suddenly, a new enemy emerges—the Shredder and his ninja followers, transported to Gotham and unleashed upon an unsuspecting world. Now they’re on the hunt for the technology that will help them return home…and conquer Gotham City in the process, with the help of Batman’s deadliest rogues. But heroes come in all shapes, and the Dark Knight does not fight alone.

It sounds like an ideal concept for a book and an animated movie. I was at the heights of my comic-book obsession in the 1990s, when there was a slew of crossovers like Spawn/Batman, WildC.A.T.s/X-Men, and the immortal classic, Iron Man/X-O Manowar in Heavy Metal. Some of these books were pretty silly, but on the whole they were a lot of fun. It’s usually pretty interesting when two characters (or groups of characters) who can’t get interact actually do. I’m looking forward to checking this one out.